Creedless Church

The President of the Church will say:

"We desire to ordain you and install you. . . . We look to you by your life and your prophetic voice to promote truth and righteousness in the world. . . ."

The church members will rise and repeat: "We the congregation ... do hereby ordain you. . . ."

Next week, in this simple ceremony at the First Unitarian Church of Essex County (Orange, N.J.), Pierre Van Paassen, anti-fascist and best-selling author, will become a Unitarian minister. Van Paassen will not have a church. He plans to write and preach throughout the country in the belief that "a small flame can set an immense heap of wood on fire."

Like many Unitarians, tall, wide-eyed Van Paassen was born in another faith,* like many he came from a family of clergymen. As a youth in Toronto (whence his family migrated from The Netherlands) he studied theology, was so fascinated by preaching that he chose the Methodist seminary because it offered opportunity for field work. But World War I interrupted his religious studies, sent him to France as a volunteer in the Canadian expeditionary force. Later, as roving correspondent for the late great New York World, he gained the high-powered inside information on European politics that made Days of Our Years a 1939-40 bestseller. His latest book. Earth Could Be Fair, to be published next month, shows 50-year-old Author Van Paassen's reawakened interest in religion; he calls it "an interpretation of Christian civilization.''

But Unitarian Van Paassen's religion is far removed from orthodox Christianity.

"I believe," says Van Paassen. "that it is now possible to impose the human will upon the cosmic process. I believe that the Kingdom of God. as a concrete politico-social state of affairs, can now become a reality because we have no choice but that or be annihilated."

Theological Freewheeling. Unitarians are accustomed to such theological freewheeling. Though early Unitarians--like Spanish Physician Michael Servetus (tried by Calvin and burned for heresy in 1553) and 16th-Century spellbinder Francis David (who converted large sections of Hungary to Unitarianism)--were conspicuous for their denial of the Trinity, modern Unitarianism goes far beyond this ancient heresy. Denying the traditional Christian concept of man's innate worthlessness without God's intervention, Unitarians see man as innately good, see the cause of mankind's ills as lack of ethical intelligence. As "seekers, not believers," they bend their efforts to acquiring and applying this intelligence in bigger and more effective doses.

Unitarianism stages no soul-stirring ritual, and has little mass appeal--its present U.S. membership is only 62,500. But Unitarians, few in number, boast of the great influence of their adherents, which have included such learned and illustrious Americans as Jefferson, the presidential Adamses, Emerson, Thoreau, William Howard Taft, Oliver Wendell Holmes.

*Dutch Reformed Church.

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